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"Twelve, forty-five, two," added Frank. "Twelve, forty-five, two," repeated Donald, writing down the time. By this time the Skylark had come about, not by gybing, for the wind was too heavy to make this evolution in safety, but had come round head to the wind, and now passed under the stern of the Penobscot. "Skylark!" reported the commodore. A few minutes later the Sea Foam did the same.
So we ran till midnight, and hove-to; and in the morning we took the light to feel for our haven " "The brigantine is gybing, again!" cried Ludlow. "He is determined to shoal his water!" The master glanced an eye around the horizon and then pointed steadily towards the north. Ludlow observed the gesture, and, turning his head, he was at no loss to read its meaning.
A moaning creak was followed by the low rumbling of a rope, as it rubbed on some hard or distended substance; and then succeeded the heavy flap of canvas, that, yielding first to a powerful impulse, was suddenly checked. "Hear ye that?" exclaimed Ludlow, a little above a whisper. "'Tis the brigantine, gybing his main-boom! Give way, men see all ready to lay him aboard!"
"Now, mind your eye, all hands!" shouted Donald, as the Maud approached the north-east point of Long Island, where he had to change her course from south-east to south, which involved the necessity, with the wind north-west, of gybing, or coming about head to the wind.
"Everything drawing, too, slow and aloft!" said the captain, with just a shade of discontent in his cheery voice, as he took in with a quick, sailor-like glance the position of the ship and every detail of the swelling pyramids of canvas that towered up on each mast from deck to sky the yards braced round sharp, almost fore and aft, the huge square sails flattened like boards, the tremulous fluttering of the flying jib, and occasional gybing of the spanker, showing how close up to the wind the vessel was being steered.
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